Marc Randall, mortgage broker, portfolio landlord and co-founder and owner of Property Circle, has developed an app to help brokers link with future clients and stay connected to existing ones.
The idea of the My Mortgage Adviser app came to Randall four years ago, sparked by his friend who spoke to him about the increasing use of mobile phones for important tasks.
Randall said: “We wanted to get ahead of the curve and do something that wasn’t just web-based.”
Having 27 years of experience as a broker himself, Randall said he wanted the app to “cure” common broker challenges and take away the heavy lifting of the job.
He also intended for the app to help brokers connect better with clients.
He then obtained funding to create My Mortgage Adviser from one of his clients, who is a Premier League footballer.
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My Mortgage Adviser allows mortgage brokers to import their client database and assess user activity to predict when someone might be ready to purchase or refinance.
Randall said: “If NatWest or Santander release a new product right now, as a broker, I have to go back through my customer base and remember that person who might want that mortgage.
“We’re not unique in doing that anymore. When we first came up with this feature, we were unique in that we could essentially process an entire back book every week to see if there was a cheaper mortgage opportunity, taking into account early redemption charges and things like that.”
Taking care of consumers across the property market
Randall previously owned an estate agency and lettings agency too, and the My Mortgage Adviser app is open to these sectors.
Letting agents can upload their portfolios to the app and connect them to their mortgage broker, while estate agents can list properties for sale.
When a customer goes to an estate agent intending to purchase a property, the app directs them to an “industry-level affordability calculator” that shows them their possible mortgage options.
Randall said this could be helpful for people who were not quite ready to receive mortgage advice, but brought them into a “controlled environment” where they would know what to do next.
“The nice thing is they’re only one click away from a broker,” he added.
Sarah Hartwell, national account manager of Property Circle, said it would be good in instances where a broker might lose a client because their offer on a property was not accepted.
She said this could also capture customers who may not be loyal to any particular advice firm and just go to the first company that comes up on a web search.
“They can still be in your environment as they look at new properties and work things out,” Hartwell added.
Randall said this resolved the issue of estate agents avoiding talking to clients about mortgage advice because of worries they were not ready for that stage.
Randall said: “Having worked in maybe 20 different estate agents over my career, you either get somebody that’s really on top of mortgages and who just gets it and therefore asks the right questions to every person who walks through the door.
“Or it’s just a complete challenge and mortgages never get mentioned even though they’re a fundamental need to the majority of buyers.”
He said that where a smaller broker might have a limited customer base, linking them to an estate agent through the app could open them up to more potential clients.
Furthermore, an estate agent can produce a customer QR code for the My Mortgage Adviser app, which asks clients for their email addresses. This then recognises if they are existing clients of a mortgage advice firm that uses Property Circle’s My Mortgage Adviser platform.
In tune with mortgage clients
A consumer using the My Mortgage Adviser app can enter their mortgage details and if it identifies there may be a cheaper option available or their initial period is about to expire, it will trigger options to release equity or find a new deal.
Users can also request a property valuation and view properties for sale.
My Mortgage Adviser is customisable, and features to help clients connect with a solicitor, find contents insurance, instruct surveys and receive survey quotes can be built in.
“Instead of pushing customers into a broker’s app, we are putting them into a marketplace where the customer can buy more products,” he said.
He added this could help in cases where a broker may not be as good at selling ancillary products, which could make the advice process easier.
Additionally, brokers will be notified if a client has recently logged back into the app after a long period, which could indicate they are closer to being purchase-ready.
The broker can then decide whether to get in touch with the client for advice.
Alternatively, once a user has gone through the affordability function on the app and feels it is time to get mortgage advice, they can request a broker to give them a callback.
“We want to attract people who may be starting the home buying journey but dip out because they can’t find the right property,” Randall said.
An app for all mortgage advisers
Randall said My Mortgage Adviser had been created as an app for larger and smaller mortgage brokers, as it offered low-cost options.
“We’ve created a product [that] starts at £50 a month. If it gets you one mortgage in a year, it pays for itself,” Randall said.
Firms can white-label the My Mortgage Adviser app to fit their branding, and Randall said this process allowed Property Circle to reduce costs and produce multiple versions of the app for different businesses.
Property Circle can build a personalised version of the app in “about three or four minutes”, or brokers can also customise the platform themselves.
My Mortgage Adviser can be linked to client relationship management (CRM) platforms used by mortgage networks and firms in case they do not want to change systems.
He added: “We’re basically trying to reignite old leads that have maybe been serviced. Or maybe a broker has clients in the client bank who did a product transfer directly, so they’ve lost that customer now.
“We try and re-engage them with the clients in their database.”
